Toward the end of trading Thursday, the Dow traded up 0.25% to 35,402.54 while the NASDAQ rose 0.05% to 15,316.38. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.13% to 4,530.11.
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 39,399,080 cases with around 642,090 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 32,857,930 cases and 439,520 deaths, while Brazil reported over 20,804,210 COVID-19 cases with 581,150 deaths. In total, there were at least 218,516,630 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 4,544,610 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Energy shares gained 2.5% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Goodrich Petroleum Corporation GDP, up 16% and Uranium Royalty Corp. UROY up 11%.
In trading on Thursday, communication services shares fell by 0.7%.
Top Headline
Hormel Foods Corporation HRL reported weaker-than-expected earnings for its third quarter and lowered its full-year earnings forecast.
Hormel Foods posted quarterly adjusted earnings of $0.39 per share, missing market estimates of $0.40 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $2.86 billion, versus estimates of $2.65 billion.
Hormel Foods said it now expects FY21 earnings of $1.65 to $1.69 per share, down from previous forecast of $1.70 to $1.82 per share. The company, however, raised its sales forecast to $11 billion to $11.2 billion.
Equities Trading UP
Kirkland's, Inc. KIRK shares shot up 16% to $21.13 after the company reported a narrower-than-expected Q2 loss.
Shares of Data Storage Corporation DTST got a boost, shooting 22% to $4.77 after the company reported a collaboration with Precisely.
Sphere 3D Corp. ANY shares were also up, gaining 40% to $9.28 as traders circulate a tweet from popular Twitter trader Will Meade saying 'Long $ANY this is the next $SPRT and they have a very good management team.'
Check out these big movers of the day
Equities Trading DOWN
Assembly Biosciences, Inc. ASMB shares tumbled 17% to $3.25. Assembly Biosciences decided to discontinue the development of ABI-H2158 (2158) following the observation of elevated alanine transaminase (ALT) levels consistent with drug-induced hepatotoxicity (liver damage) in the Phase 2 trial. William Blair downgraded Assembly Biosciences from Outperform to Market Perform.
Shares of Meten EdtechX Education Group Ltd. METX were down 57% to $0.3887 after the company priced its 200 million share offering at $0.30 per share.
Phreesia, Inc. PHR was down, falling 10% to $62.29 after the company reported a wider loss for the second quarter.
Commodities
In commodity news, oil traded up 1.9% to $69.88, while gold traded down 0.3% to $1,811.20.
Silver traded down 1.2% Thursday to $23.93 while copper rose 0.6% to $4.3040.
Euro zone
European shares closed mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.31%, the Spanish Ibex Index fell 0.11% and the German DAX 30 gained 0.1%. Meanwhile, the London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.2%, French CAC 40 rose 0.06% and Italy’s FTSE MIB gained 0.20%.
Producer prices in the Eurozone increased 2.3% in July. The number of people registered as unemployed in Spain fell 82,583 to 3.3 million in August.
Economics
US-based employers reported 15,723 job cuts in August.
The US trade deficit shrank to $70 billion in July. Exports from the US rose 1.3% to $212.9 billion in July, while imports slipped 0.2% to $282.9 billion.
US initial jobless claims dropped to 340,000 in the week ending August 28th, recording its lowest level since March 2020.
Unit labor costs rose an annualized 1.3% in the second quarter, while nonfarm labor productivity rose by an annualized 2.1%.
US factory orders rose 0.4% for July.
US natural-gas supplies climbed 20 billion cubic feet last week, the Energy Information Administration said.
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